Sander in Nazi Land
by Atlas Lightyear
Summary: One golden afternoon. One unsuspecting girl. A fateful tumble down the rabbit hole. Wonderland? Well, if Wonderland has Nazis. . . . Two-shot?
1. Chapter 1

**I have no idea where this idea came from. The stupid plot bunny has been gnawing on the inside of my brain since I saw the movie and fell in love with Hicox about two/three weeks ago. Why aren't there any HicoxOC stories on here, anyways? Have I missed them? Well, anyhow, I don't know what I'm going to be doing with this. Maybe it'll just be this one random part. Maybe I'll update it. Haven't decided. And if I do update, don't expect it to be on a regular, predictable basis. I'm hit with inspiration very rarely, and very erratically, and all I've thought up is this one part and some odd events afterwards.**

**Anyhow. If you like, wunderbar. If you don't, that's okay too. I'm just throwing it out there.**

**XXX**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own -sob- so please don't sue. Sander is mine, though. And the weirdness is mine, too. And man I wish Hicox was.**

**XXX**

**RATING: M. Does this really need an explanation? If I'm going to make it into a story, it will be chock full 'o that good, basterdly violence and language.**

**-Note: **_italics _**are mainly thoughts.**

**XXX**

**Ch. 1**

**XXX**

It happens on a pleasant spring day. The sky is clear. The breeze is cool. And the sunshine is pale and cheerful, spilling down through the trees in a swirling, hazy shimmer. It's the perfect spring day. Too perfect. In fact, it's so horribly immaculate that she should have known something like this was bound to happen.

. . . .okay. Maybe not something _exactly_ like this, but _something_ nevertheless.

Because it isn't on any _normal_ spring day that one would simply take a stroll through the forest and fall down a rabbit hole. And this is exactly what happens. In one moment, she is walking. Bored. Wandering down the path that spirals down, down, down into the twisted depths of the forest. And in the next moment, she's not walking. She's falling. The ground simply vanishes beneath her feet, and she falls. Wind stings her skin like the shallow slices of shattered glass. Fills her burning eyes with tears. Pressure so tight it squeezes her lungs, until she can't breathe. Gasping. Choking. And then, darkness. She's terrified she's gone blind as she twists and flails and scrabbles outwards with desperate hands. Nails scrap uselessly through empty air.

Falling. Falling. So dark it seems to smother her. Wraps a black fist around her throat and sends bursts of white pain exploding behind her eyelids.

Time escapes her as she keeps falling. A minute. An hour. Eternity. But then, there's light. Sudden and painful and warm and so very, very bright. It swallows the darkness and illuminates the spinning world. Everything has gone. . . .blue. A cold blue. A dangerous blue. Chunks of sky and rainbow speed past her in sickening blurs. She tumbles, head over heels, too petrified to scream. To frozen with disbelief to cry.

Falling. Falling. Greenish smudges of treetops. Branches extending like gnarled, deformed fingers, reaching for her. Calling for her. Wanting to strip the flesh from her bones and display her broken form from their bloody, weeping boughs. It's awful. Horrifying. She's imaging the pulpy _splat_ her body is going to make the moment she hits the ground.

And she does. Hit the ground, a moment later. There's no time to brace herself for the bruising impact, but, that's all it does. Bruise her. Badly. Which is something absurd and mystifying and completely impossible in of itself.

_What the hell? How am I not dead? _

Something hard and gritty is pressing against the side of her face. A low, pained groan issues from her cracked lips. There's a ringing, reverberating around the inside of her skull. And every tiny piece of her battered and trembling form aches like nothing she has never felt before.

A voice. She hears a voice, echoing from. . . .somewhere. At first she thinks that it's the trees, whispering all around her.

_Trees don't whisper, stupid,_ she argues with herself. A scowl pulls at the left side of her throbbing face. _But I also should also be dead. So. . . . Shit. I've finally cracked. Wonderland does exist and the trees here speak German. Chuck would get a fuckin' kick out of this. . . ._

Slowly, carefully. She attempts to peel her eyelids back and winces, since every breath she shakily draws in sends knives into her lungs and white hot fire racing through chest. A cracked rib? Maybe two? Bone bruises? Should she feel lucky, or just angry?

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! _Her new surroundings swim dizzyingly into view. On weak arms she props herself up, blinking in hazy confusion at the sight her brain is registering. _Where's the White Rabbit? The vivid, beautiful insanity? What the hell kind of a Wonderland _is_ this? _

She's laying in the middle of a dirt road. A worn, nondescript dirt road marked with tire tracks. Towering trees rise up, up, and away on her either side, harsh shades of green and brown and black and rustling ominously as a chilled wind whips straight through her. And that deep, melodic voice. Shouting. Calling for someone in a lilt of German. There's nothing bright and fantastical about this dreary place whatsoever.

_I though Louis Carroll was some whacked English guy? Where the hell does the German come into this? Hell. . . ._

She shakes her head, but then immediately regrets it as a spike of pain drills itself right between her eyes. _Ouch. Shit_. Whimpering in pitiful agony before, gingerly, easing her protesting limbs into a kneeling position. Bones _pop_ and _crack_ beneath her. Stiff and tense and excruciating. But she forces herself to ignore it, even if the straining effort pulls her paled, sweating face into something of an awkward grimace. _Get it together, Sander. You've dealt with worse. _

True enough. Thought it's not reassuring. Sander lets her narrowed gaze sweep the vicinity, and her eyes focus in on a very strange image not too far away. A piece of dark olive canvas, shredded and fluttering and caught up in one of the nearby trees. Like, a parachute canvas? Because the inhabitants of Wonderland are really adept at jumping out of airplanes? _Wait, Wonderland has airplanes? Huh. I never would have guessed._

Sander squints into the fog of cool sunshine, shielding her bloodshot eyes with a hand to get a better look at this parachute. At first, she thinks that it's the wind that keeps rustling the strings and the rough material. Until, after a moment, she realizes that someone is still _attached_ to the parachute, and he's the one jerkily twisting the canvas and the strings. Desperately trying to free himself. And she also realizes that _she_ is the one he is waving at and calling for in that lovely, lilting German.

_Well, what do you know? The Hatter is stuck in a tree, and it's up to Alice to save him, _Sander muses, gently pushing herself up onto her feet_. _Wincing again. But getting surprisingly skillful at hiding her discomfort, as she forces the expression away and clenches her jaw to mask it. _He won't last long if he can't get out. So, what choice do I have? I sure as hell would want someone to help _me_ if _I_ was stuck in a tree. Ha. That rhymes. _

She closes the distance between them in a few easy strides. But when her eyes flicker over the uniform he's wearing, her breath freezes in her chest, and she abruptly stops. Stunned. Not quite sure if she is actually _seeing_ what she is seeing, because what she _is_ seeing is really quite shocking. The man is wearing a uniform. And not just any uniform, either. The numerous and fancy buttons on his once. . . .immaculate lapel, shine like diamonds as his long, lithe form bends towards her, into the sunlight.

_Let me get this fucking straight: Alice falls into a 1940s Wonderland and the Hatter is really a Nazi? REALLY? _Sander gawks at the man, with his smoothed and flawless skin flushed from the heat of his struggle, and ridiculously blue, gleaming eyes wide beneath his ruffled slick of brown hair. Stray strands are plastered unevenly against his forehead.

Blinking. Startled. Sander shakes her head and crashes back into the real world, as the man keeps going on and on and _on_ about nothing. But she doesn't mind his continued ramblings because he speaks the coarse language with such a interesting accent. It's incredibly nice to listen to. Which is weird. Isn't it? Not that she's an expert on German accents or anything; she's only been taking lessons for a week and can't pick out any words other than _help me_ and _please_ and bits like that in his ramble.

_But he's a fucking _Nazi! _I should just leave him up there!_

_. . . .right? I mean, if that rabbit hole _did_ take me into some twisted, parallel World War II Wonderland. . . .then I should leave him._

But as Sander wills her feet to move, to turn away from the trapped man and continue on down the dirt road, her muddied boots won't budge. Not an inch. And she can't tear herself away from those wide and pleading eyes. They are so very, very blue, and so very distressed. . . .

_Goddamn conscience,_ Sander finally scowls. _There's got to be something horribly wrong with me, something that Chuck doesn't even know about yet, if I'm feeling freakin' sorry for _Nazis_._ She takes a step closer. And another. And then another. Until she's standing almost directly underneath him, and his own shined boots are dangling about a foot above her head.

_Hmm. . . . This might be more difficult than I thought. _She backs up some so she can see the man's face again. He's still talking in that deep, honeyed German, motioning with a hand wrapped in parachute bindings and having a rather difficult time doing so. It almost looks like he's trying to point to one of his feet. Or maybe a leg. A pant leg. No, an ankle? Could he have a knife strapped to his ankle? God knows that she doesn't keep any knives on her _or _in her backpack. Not anymore, at least. Not since she's started seeing Chuck, some eight or nine months ago.

"Here?" She mimics his movements and points at his left ankle. "Is it here?"

The man pauses. His brows shoot up into his ruffled hair, eyes widening even more so in surprise as he stares down at her. "A Yankee? Well. . . .this is completely unexpected." He says. And his tone, and his expression, is saturated with honest relief.

"But unexpected or not, this is bloody fortunate, indeed. Um, as you might have guessed, I missed my drop zone and. . . ." He jerks his head towards the flapping canvas of the parachute. Half of a sheepish smile takes to his curved lips. "And I got a bit tied up on the way down. Would you mind helping me out for a moment?"

Sander blinks at him. Trying to sort through everything that this man just said, even if he spoke clear and perfect English. _Oo-kay, then. The Hatter is really an Englishman impersonating a Nazi. Does that happen often in Wonderland, or is there something even fuckin' weirder going on here than I figured?_

"Please, by all means. Take your time." The Englishman says lightly. He looks down one end of the dirt road, and then the other. "But you do know if any Germans happen by, they will shoot us on sight. Well, maybe not me, since I could probably lie my way out of this situation. . . . But they would shoot _you_, as being a Yankee in France right now very much makes it seem like you're a spy. And I would hate for you to get shot. Truly."

Sander blinks again. But this time she's quicker to understand the stranger and the current danger of their bizarre predicament, despite her mounting and overwhelming confusion. _France? I'm in a _French_ World War II Wonderland with a Nazi-impersonating Englishman? What the fuck?! I swear I haven't been mixing my pills up again, Chuck. I swear that this is actually fuckin' happening right now. . . ._

An anxious jolt reanimates her limbs and she hurries closer to the Englishman, heart beginning to pound against her sore ribcage as she reaches up for his boot.

"The left one. Right. It's only a pocket knife, but it should work." He tells her, frowning. Looking just as anxious as Sander is so violently feeling at this particular moment. Her fingers fumble clumsily through the laces, and it takes a few, excruciatingly long minutes for her to untangle the knots and slip off the boot. And all the while she keeps daring glances over her shoulder. To her left down the road. Then to her right. Straining her ears for any of the smallest possible sounds.

Not that the wind rustling the leaves and the branches makes that task any easier.

_Shit, shit, _shit! _Move, Sander! Since when the hell does Alice have to worry about getting _shot_ in Wonderland, anyways?! _She sinks her teeth deep into the side of her mouth, sliding the small, glinting fold of red metal out from the loop around the man's ankle. With a _swish_ it pops open. A small and shiny razor blade about an inch long.

She steps back to survey the severity of this situation. The locking device on the 'chute's pack seems to be jammed shut around the Englishman's middle; hence why he can't simply unbuckle himself and then be on his merry way. Not to mention his arms and hands, which are wound up in the cords in such a manner that it makes him look like a living puppet. So even if the lock wasn't jammed, he still couldn't unbuckle himself, anyways.

And then there's the problem of height. Because, though she might be taller than the average standards for a teenaged girl, she isn't _that _tall. So she definitely can't reach any of the strings to cut him loose.

_Okay. I'll improvise, then. _Her eyes dart to the tree nearest the Englishman, noting all of its branches and footholds and weak spots to avoid in a matter of frantic seconds. Then she launches herself up into its midst, sharp ends of sticks poking and clawing at her skin and her face as she climbs up, up, and up, knife between her teeth. Scowling and muttering angrily to herself as the branches cut shallow slices into every inch of her exposed flesh. _Hatter, you better be fuckin' worth this trouble I'm going through, you know that? _

Finally, Sander swings her leg over a thick, sturdy branch that's level with the Englishman's shoulders. He's staring at her unblinkingly, as impressed as he is startled. "You'll have to forgive me." He says humbly, a glint in his shining blue eyes. "I seem to have underestimated your capability for taking impromptu action under a great deal of pressure. Do you, by any chance, work for the American Government?"

Sander feels a familiar pull in the left side of her face, but doesn't try too hard to restrain the partial, lopsided smirk. "Well if I did, Hatter, I couldn't possibly tell _you _that. Because then I'd have to kill you." She says, with utmost seriousness, smirk vanishing. As she in leans close, but not too close. Just far enough off of the branch to reach the jumbled cords and begin sawing away at them.

"Oh. Of course." The Englishman agrees. "I daresay, your secret would be safe with me, though." A glittering grin flits about his mouth for a minute, until his brows abruptly furrow. "Wait a moment. . . ." He frowns. "Did you just call me 'Hatter?'"

Sander stops. Six chords cut, and about two dozen more to go. "Should I not have? Do you go by a different name here? Well. . . .it wouldn't be all that surprising if you did, I guess. This is some fucked up place, I'll tell ya." She shakes her head and resumes her sawing. The Englishman, every so few she breaks, falls another inch lower, closer towards the ground.

And he's staring at her as if he is suddenly seeing her in very different light. His frown is thoughtful now, or perhaps thoughtfully incredulous. "Are you all right?" He asks. Sounding mildly concerned. "When I crashed, you were just laying in the road there. . . .what happened? Was it the Germans?"

She blinks. Caught up in the silvery fathoms of those curiously blue, _absurdly _blue eyes of his. It disarms her for a moment, and she comes a bit too close to chopping off one of the Englishman's fingers as he, with a grateful nod, pulls his left hand free.

"Um. No. It wasn't the Germans. But I'm okay." Sander shrugs, looking away from the man uncomfortably. "My head kind of hurts, but I'm okay."

He doesn't believe her. She can tell by his obvious expression, and she also does well to ignore it as she cuts his right hand free. His skin is marked all over with pulsing, angry red lines, from where the strings bit so deeply into his flesh. He gives a great sigh, rubbing his hands together with a genuine air of gratefulness.

"I might have something in my bag you can take for your head." He offers. "It is, after all, the least I can do-"

One last cut, and the Englishman falls free. Sending up a cloud of shimmering dust and dirt when he _thumps_ to the ground, followed by the parachute's backpack, which lands next to him in a smaller puff of dust.

"That could have definitely gone much worse than it did." He flashes a grin up at Sander as she, less than gracefully, swings down from the branch and _thuds_ down in front of the man. He has gotten up and is dusting off his lovely jacket, readjusting buttons and the prim, smartly cut collar, before running a hand through his sleek hair and slicking it back, off of his face.

"Thank you." His smile is full of even, white teeth. "I probably would have been hanging there for hours if you hadn't been around."

"I was considering leaving you here, you know. I thought you were a Nazi at first." Sander admits. She reaches down, hefts up the olive bag, and then holds it out to him.

He nods, accepting the pack and stringing it over his shoulder. "I could have hardly blamed you if you _had_ left. But, do you mind me inquiring. . . .as to why you didn't? As an American, and if you thought I was a Nazi. . . ." He trails off curiously.

_I'm still wondering about that myself. _"I'm not _technically _American." Sander settles for, instead. And the motley pair set off down the road, hidden just enough, off to the side and in the trees, to remain out of sight if anyone were to happen by.

"Hmm." The Englishman considers this. Interest piqued. "You do have a slight accent. Russian?" He guesses, removing a handsome handgun from his waistband and examining it for any damage.

Sander's eyes follow that pistol. Riveted. "Bravo, Captain. You know your accents."

He glances at her in amusement. "And _you_ know your ranks. Though I am only masquerading as a Captain, which you no doubt have figured out. I must say, you are full of peculiar surprises, Miss. . . ?"

She turns her eyes to the shadowy underbrush stretching out before them, shoulders drooping. It's darker and colder, off of the road. _I hope we're going back to his gardens for tea. Even if I don't like tea. Hell; anything warm sounds great right about now. _

"Sander. Arkov. And if you're not Hatter, then who are you?" She wonders suspiciously. "Other than an Englishman pretending to be a Nazi in Wonderland, of course."

He's in the middle of rifling around in his bag, now, and has a bottle of what looks like aspirin in his hand when he pauses. And gives her the strangest look she has ever seen. "Pardon? Are you _sure_ you're all right? We're in France, Miss Arkov. France. Not a Lewis Carroll fairytale."

Sander stares at him, her eyes narrowing carefully. "So. . . .you're really not Hatter? And that rabbit hole I fell down. . . . Really?" Disappointment colors across her crestfallen face. "This really isn't Wonderland?" _I can't believe this! If this isn't Wonderland, then. . . .fuck!_

"Dear Lord." The Englishman mutters, more to himself than to Sander. "No, sweetheart." He gives her a painstaking smile and pats her gently on the shoulder. "This isn't Wonderland, and I'm not the Hatter. My name is Lieutenant Archie Hicox, and this is Nazi-occupied France."

Sander sighs. "I guess that makes more sense. Sorry, Hicox. I'm really not crazy." _Sense, yeah. But does it make me feel better? Hell, no! And about that 'crazy' part. . . . I'm reconsidering it. _She throws back the two aspirin he offered her and chases it down with a swig of Gatorade she stowed in her own bag. Lemon Lime flavored. Her favorite.

Hicox chuckles, not uncomfortably, but the warm sound does have a bit of an unsure edge to it now. "Don't apologize, Miss. You must have taken quite a hit, there. That's all. Do you remember how you ended up in the road?"

_Sure do. I fell down a rabbit hole. But something tells me that won't go over very well, and I don't think I should be freakin' out Mister Hatter any more than he kind of all ready is, _she thinks dryly. _Since he's the only person I know now, the last thing I want to do is have him abandon me._

"Um. . . .no. I don't remember. Maybe it was the Germans, after all." Sander shrugs.

"Well, you _are_ wearing an American uniform." Hicox adds, an eyebrow quirked. "Perhaps you're a soldier, and you were merely separated from your squadron?"

Sander looks down at herself, realizing, with a twitch of nervousness, that she is, quite plainly, dressed in her usual army jacket, t-shirt, and cargos. Which would of course look like an American uniform to a Brit in the '40s. _Shit. This sure isn't getting any easier._

"Uh, maybe." She clear her throat awkwardly. "I don't know. So. . . .mind if I stick with you? Until some of my memory comes back, at least?"

Hicox looks at her. Endless blue eyes dripping golden, as golden as his accent. A soft smile touches upon the corners of his lips. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt. Besides, I owe you. And maybe you know how far away we are from Nadine? My drop zone was about fifteen miles outside of the city, and, unfortunately. . . ." He glances around them with half of an crooked, abashed grin. "I have absolutely no idea where we are."

"Let's see." Sander adopts her very serious face and looks around, too. Her eyes are narrowed, and her mouth is pressed into a tight line. Hicox seems as if he isn't quite sure _how_ to react. Is the girl joking? Does she really know where they are? It would be incredibly helpful if she does.

"Huh." She finally says, with a grim nod. "Well. We seem to be walking through an unusually dark and creepy forest, Lieutenant. Wait!" She does a double-take over her shoulder before nodding again. "Nope. It is, in fact, a dark and creepy forest."

Hicox stares at her for no longer than a moment. And then he starts laughing this laugh that lights up his eyes and makes his whole face shine. He just _laughs, _and Sander is feeling incredibly proud of herself for such an astute, witty comment that could make a Lieutenant laugh like that. Her own face glows back.

"Miss-"

"No. Nu-uh. Call me Sander, or Arkov. Not 'Miss.'" Sander firmly insists. "I don't like that."

Hicox blinks. Still faintly grinning. "Of course. Sander it is."

"Good."

"Is it short for Alexandria?"

Sander pulls face. "_Hell_ no. It's Aleksandre. And they are _not_ the same, so don't tell me that they sound similar, Hatter."

The Englishman raises his hands in a picture of dramatic surrender, eyes glinting amusedly. "I would never dare say such a thing. But it is a very lovely name anyways."

Sander rolls her eyes. But there's that pull in the left side of her face again , and she's grinning, however unwillingly, back. "No it isn't. It's a boy's name because that's what my parents were expecting. Then they had me. And the name didn't change."

"What a wonderful story."

"Shut up."

And thus concludes the beginning of what happened to one unsuspecting girl, on one golden afternoon, when she tumbled down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Or something

**XXX**

**Review if you like. But thank you for reading, anyways. ^^**


	2. Chapter 2

**Wow. Hey. Thanks for the reviews and alerts! Kinda surprised me that people liked the odd little one-shot so much. Well, this is another weird, pointless Basterd/Wonderland thing. A two-shot? Who knows?**

**XXX**

**Ch. 2**

**XXX**

It's not a dream. It _can't_ be a dream. Because when Sander falls asleep later that night, she wakes up again and everything is still the same. She's curled up on a bed of cold, springy moss at the base of a large tree, deep in the thickets of a creepy French forest in this strange Wonderland. Oh, right. Well, she's still going to call it Wonderland, anyways. Because it's wonderful in its own, fucked way. Sort of. The Nazi part and the War part isn't so wonderful. But as she groggily sits up, rubs at her eyes, and fishes around the inside of her backpack for her box, her sleepy gaze falls on the figure across from her.

Hatter, um, Hicox, rather, apparently fell asleep last night with his back against a particularly oversized boulder. And still he slumbers on, even as the pale, rosy fingers of dawn start spilling down through the treetops and spilling over him. Makes his skin glow. His hair shine. The buttons on his jacket wink at Sander in a haze of heady silver.

She watches him with that pull in her face: an unwillingly smile crawling across her mouth as his head lolls back against the stone. His mouth slightly open. Snoring softly. Pistol clutched loosely in his hand, resting in his lap.

And Sander watches him for a few minutes, thinking that, maybe, _this _is wonderful. The silent forest. The glimmer of morning. And this strange Nazi-impersonating Englishman sleeping and snoring across from her.

_Fine. So maybe it's not what you would call wonderful in the 'classic' sense of the word. . . ._ Her smile twitches into a scowl as her hand finally closes in around the slim white box, rattling around at the bottom of her bag. _And maybe it's not what you'd call wonderful in any normal sense of the word at all. But really, Chuck. Hatter isn't so bad. You'd be proud at how much of an effort I'm making to be polite. . . .but shit. Being nice to really weirdo Englishmen is pretty hard fuckin' work, I'll tell ya._ _'Specially with all of this other fucked up strangeness going on. _She shakes her head and opens up the small compartment stamped with a T on the white box. Because it's still Tuesday, right?

It has to be Tuesday. Yesterday was Monday, so that makes today Tuesday. Right. And she really can't think anyway else, because if it's _not_ Tuesday, well, she might be kind of screwed. _Uh-oh. I hope I'm not stuck here for longer than a week, _she muses worriedly, tilting her head back to swallow the bright array of reds and greens and little blue pills. _Don't got enough for more than six days, and skipping my meds is bad, bad, bad. Chuck wouldn't like that. And _I _don't like doing it, either. _

Sander polishes off the rest of her Lemon Lime Gatorade and tries, with moderate success, to push those concerns to the back of her head. Then she checks and rechecks her pack for any sort of snacks that might be hiding amidst her random assortment of belongings. _Socks, flashlight, scrapbook, watch. . . .notebook. . . .some pencils. . . .and there's another pair of socks. . . . Dammit! I brought the _striped_ green ones, and not the _checkered_ green ones? What the hell was I thinking?!_

Zipping up the bag, probably rougher than necessary, Sander's scowl deepens and she glares up at the misty smudges of treetops. So far above them, it's almost scary. Almost. Her stomach growls, and it sounds like a snarling monster in the stillness. There isn't even a breeze, not like yesterday. Which is good. Because French breezes are icy and unpleasant, and they smell like blood and metal.

Hicox mutters something as he stirs. Brows furrowing. A frown creasing his smooth skin. He looks so harmless. So innocent. Really, his good looks are incredibly distracting, and Sander doesn't like that. So she extends a foot over the remnants of their smoldering fire and gives his leg a kick. Nothing violent or mean like that, but just hard enough to wake him up. And he does. Wake. Immediately, and with a sudden, jerking motion of his neck, and that causes a resounding _crack_ to break the silence. Closely followed by a pained groan on the Lieutenant's part as his free hand moves to massage the tender stretch of skin just above his collar bone.

Sander arches an eyebrow at him, refusing to watch the muscles and tendons in his throat flutter and flex beneath such a thin layer of flesh. _Stupid handsome Englishmen. . . .stupid tensing neck muscles. . . . Hell. What the fuck is wrong with me?_

"What a wonderful way to wake up." Hicox mutters. "I can't feel my legs; God, I hope they're still there." He winces as he stretches out his lithe limbs, and the action makes Sander so angry and uncomfortable that she climbs to her feet and turns around. Just so she doesn't have to look at him anymore.

"What's the plan for today, Hatter?" She asks brusquely, hands on her hips. Her dark eyes narrowed and staring off into the densely obscuring underbrush ahead, as if they could see straight through the dark and back out onto the dirt road. _If we're even still _following_ the road, thanks to Mister Versatility and his genius sense of direction, _she snorts to herself.

"Good morning to you, too, sunshine." The Englishman chirps. "I'm so glad to see that at least _you_ got a decent night's rest." More _cracks_ and _pops_ of stiff joints as he stands up and brushes off his clothes.

"Me? A decent night's rest?" Sander scoffs. "I barely sleep, and when I do, all I have are nightmares. Chuck says I've got to learn to relax more, but, really, relaxing is the _last_ thing that I'm doing here in Wonderland. Not when we could get ambushed by Nazis and shot at any damn time." She shoots poor, bewildered Hicox a look. "Can _you _relax?"

"Um, well-"

"Exactly."

Hicox blinks. And then he frowns and shakes his head. "I'm sorry, but what the hell are you talking about?"

Sander sighs. "It's okay. I mean, it's nothing. Never mind." _Just shut up, Sander. Shut up and stop sounding crazy. People don't like it when you sound crazy, remember? That's how the police get involved, and Nazi Police are so much fuckin' worse than those rent-a-cops back home. _

"No, it's all right." The Englishman assures her gently. He stops at her side and surveys her in concern. "You have nightmares?" His accent is like liquid sunshine, golden and shining and dripping off of his white teeth and congealing in her bloodstream like a kind of sweet, numbing anti-psycho drug. So unlike the kinds she's been taking every day for the last five years of her life.

And. . . .it doesn't feel. . . .bad. But that doesn't mean anything!

"Every time I close my eyes." She mumbles. Averting her gaze from those probing, fathomless blue eyes and shifting her feet uneasily. "Can we go on, now? I'm starving." And she doesn't wait for him as she plows on through the sticks and leaves with her neck prickling weirdly and the skin on her left arm burning from where the Englishman so lightly touched her, even through the thick material of her jacket.

Startled. And maybe hurt by her sudden hostility, Hicox frowns. He quickens his stride to catch up to her, shouldering his pack after managing to salvage some cured meat strips: AKA beef jerky, the _right_ way to start off _anyone's_ morning in the middle of Nazi-occupied France.

"I'm sorry, Sander. I know it's none of my business, and I didn't mean to pry. Don't be mad." He holds out a stick of jerky as a peace offering when he reaches her again. "Truce? I'll even let _you_ ask some of the questions this time." A crooked grin. Those infuriatingly _infuriating _blue eyes.

Of course Sander isn't mad at him. And the fact that she can't be mad or stay upset at a man who looks like Hicox and sounds like Hicox and is as damn _nice_ as Hicox is. . . .well that just makes her even madder. It's a horribly annoying, endless cycle, really. And it's giving her a bit of a headache as she thinks about it, which it shouldn't.

_I _do_ have to eat something with these pills, though. Chuck says it's not good to take straight meds on an empty stomach. Maybe that's where the headache is coming from. _So, begrudgingly, Sander relents. She takes the jerky and finishes off her portion of it in about sixty eight seconds, before sorely wishing she had eaten it slower. Because she's still hungry.

"Thanks, Hatter." She mutters. _He didn't have to share. And he did. People like him just don't exist anymore, do they? Not where I come from, at least. Chuck is a one in a million. I wish he was here right now. . . ._

"Don't mention it. I was hardly going to stuff my face in front of you and not even offer." He smiles crookedly.

Sander has to blink to clear the fog clouding up her brain. When the Englishman gets all smiley like that, his eyes seem to shine more silver than blue. Like stars. All aglitter and swirling and. . . .and, um, huh. It must just be from the funny, slanting angle of the sun sliding through the trees. She clears her throat awkwardly and looks away.

"So, I get to ask the questions now, huh?"

Since she spent nearly all of their travels yesterday attempting to answer Hicox's persistent curiosity with. . . .honestly? With as much truth as she could, without giving _too_ much about herself away in the process. And it was really damn hard, too. She's a good liar and usually, hell, she lies straight to people all of the time and could care less about it. Except Chuck. He's the only person she thought she could never lie to.

But looking at the Englishman with his wide blue eyes, so avidly fixed on her as she stammered out replies, was unnerving. _Chuck_ gives her such devoted attention. And just Chuck. So why the hell is Hicox so interested in her? That's what really bothered her during his questioning. He just kept asking and asking and asking, and he never got bored or frustrated with her bizarre answers. And the stranger she answered, the more interested he became because, really, he wears his emotions as easily as she hides hers.

_Shit. He's so easy to read that I can't read him at all. And what the hell kind of sense does _that_ make? _Sander's face falls back into its usual scowl. _Man, I really wonder about myself sometimes._

An hour passes. Maybe two. The motley pair trade off on questions this time as the sun rises higher and higher. And, unaware of it happening, Sander finds herself actually beginning to relax around the Lieutenant.

_Stupid, charming Englishmen._

At least he doesn't press the issue with her nightmares. Which is something she's grateful for.

"So. Hatter." She studies him with careful intensity, but tries not to stare too long into those unrealistically toned eyes. "What's an Englishman doing dressed as Nazi and parachuting into some obscure French city all by himself? Sounds like a suicide mission to me."

Hicox nods. And chuckles. "Fair enough. I'm surprised that this didn't actually come up sooner."

"I had more important things to ask first." Sander huffs defensively.

"Like whether or not I preferred to have spaghetti over lasagna on Thursday nights?" He arches his brows with an innocently widening grin. But she can see it: he's trying not to laugh at her right now. His shoulders are shaking a little from the effort of holding it back.

"Yes." Sander stiffly replies. And she might have 'accidentally' elbowed Hicox in the arm. "For your information, I really needed to know."

"Of course you did. I wasn't questioning _that." _He teases.

She scowls at the ground and kicks a small stone into the brush. "Are you going to answer me or not, chief?"

Hicox hesitates. For the first time since meeting him, the Englishman honestly looks a smidge uncomfortable. He tugs unconsciously at this collar, then readjusts his backpack. The trees are tapering out now. The forest, becoming more spacious, brighter with early afternoon light. Warmer. Friendlier. But Sander doesn't pay attention to any of that. She's watching the Lieutenant with unwavering inquisitiveness and not bothering to hide it.

_Something big is going down in Wonderland. Why do I get that feeling? And why do I get the feeling that Hatter is a key part in it? Hmm. . . ._

"I won't tell anyone." She insists earnestly. Eyes growing wide, as if to convey her point any clearer.

"It's not a question of you telling anyone or not, Sander." Hicox muses, as he runs a hand over his gleaming hair. "Because, despite your. . . .well, interesting quirks," he flashes her a grin, "you seem to be bizarrely trustworthy. But if we're ever captured by the German. . . .you would be responsible for potentially dangerous information that could endanger your life. No, this kind of information would _end_ your life. And I can't risk that." His grin twists into a softer, sadder smile. "You're a nice kid. And I'm just sorry you got mixed up in all of this."

Sander bites the inside of her mouth and looks away. I'm _not sorry,_ she thinks dully. _This is scary, yeah, but it's also really exciting. I might die. But at least I might die alongside the first friend I've ever made on my own. And that means something. It really does._

"How about another question? In fact, I'll let you ask _two_ in a row." Hicox offers, patting her shoulder. "Fair?"

"I don't have anymore." Sander shrugs. _I know mostly everything I want to know, anyways. A film critic. A published author. A small family. Humbled and handsome and, wait. Dammit! _She shakes her head with a scowl, and the poor Englishmen misinterprets the action and frowns.

"Come on. Don't be like that. . . . Alice."

_Huh? _Sander looks at him sharply, eyebrows vanishing into the mismatched bangs of her hair. And he's looking at her back quite innocently, his own brow quirked, with a slight, entertained twitch to his lips.

"What?" He lightly wonders. "If I'm the Hatter in this world, doesn't that make you Alice?"

Sander considers this. Then, she grins. She honestly gives the Englishman a grin back, and Hicox seems incredibly pleased by this.

"You believed me?" She presses incredulously. "Really? You're not just screwin' with me?"

Hicox's eyes are shining. "I don't think any kind of person _but_ someone like you could fall down a rabbit hole and into Wonderland. So, yes. I think I _do_ believe you." And he says it in such a way that, despite the suspicions gnawing in her head, Sander can't help but believe _him, _believing her.

_Stupid, charming Englishmen, _she thinks again. And this time, she thinks it with a big smile on her face.

**XXX**

**Hope ya'll enjoyed this!**


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